Speaking Of Crypto

“I really do think this would make a huge positive difference. And when you find that thing, there’s nothing else in the world you’d rather do than just stick with it until you’ve made it happen.” Joanna Hubbard found her thing, the thing that motivated her to move mountains or in this case move energy, renewable energy even, distributed on a blockchain. Working in the energy sector, and recognizing that there was a long way to go where Cleantech was concerned, Joanna started questioning the status quo. Why couldn’t they work on changing energy demand rather than solely focus on managing supply? Coal plants being subsidised to keep up their huge production volume didn’t make sense to her, when she knew of much greener ways to produce energy. It seemed like the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing? Why weren’t these systems integrated, communicating with one another? Why wasn’t a real price being placed on energy, one that factored in the environmental cost? Why hadn’t the energy sector changed

“It’s very much like the dot com era when the internet allowed a lot of people to dream, and the internet era is when the entrepreneurship culture started. Very similar with this blockchain technology, the number of people who have started imagining has grown.” Subhajit Mandal and I go on a journey of imagination, discussing use cases for blockchain technology and where he sees the future of innovation in worlds like decentralized social media, the health industry and the travel industry. Why is imagination so important in the blockchain space? Because technology is about the future, and since the future isn’t here yet, it only exists as a concept, in our mind… or in the case of blockchain tech, in the mind of Satoshi, Vitalik and those who are ready to boldly go where no man (or woman) has gone before! And why is Bitcoin and blockchain technology, the future? Nothing like it has ever come before. And the things that make it so amazing are worth thinking about and really exploring and imagining what else can

“This is a technology (Bitcoin blockchain tech) that is going to make the world a better place. I do have a world view that making the world a better place is something to live for.” ~Paul Snow Paul Snow, didn’t imagine that his part in making the world a better place would begin with inadvertently funding his retirement! But back in 2011, when Paul invested in Bitcoin, that’s what he did. With a Master’s degree in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from Texas A+M University, he heard about Bitcoin, believed in the technology and personally invested in it. Two years later, he sat down with his wife and shared the good news — that they’re retirement was paid for! Imagine! Then what? Then his journey into the technology behind bitcoin really began. Paul founded Factom, a protocol layer over the Bitcoin Blockchain. He organized and chairs the annual Texas Bitcoin Conference which he also co-founded.  And he promotes making the world a better place through decentralization and blockchain technology. I ha

Nick Beglinger is a bit of a disruptor. He has a background as an economist, and at one point had his own software company, but he’s also an environmental activist. http://cleantech21.org/ In his home of Switzerland, he co-founded swisscleantech, a national green business association, to bring together commerce and climate goals, but being the face of climate regulation, in a thriving economy, wasn’t always popular. In fact, by one Swiss economic magazine was labeled ‘the big mouth of energy change’. http://www.swisscleantech.ch/ But, after learning about the disruptive nature of blockchain technology, and feeling the urgency of climate change, he wanted to bring blockchain disruption to the sustainability movement, and he did, in a big way. Nick and his company Cleantech21 partnered with the United Nations, organized seventeen different workshops in seventeen major cities around the world, in order to reach out to the international developer community, and out of that – the Hack4Climate hackathon was born. C

Dante Disparte is a regular Forbes contributor, author, CEO and founder of Risk Cooperative, and former Chair of the Harvard Business School Club of DC and Member of HBS Alumni Board in Boston. He is also a founding advisor of the Global Blockchain Business Council. http://riskcooperative.com/ In our chat today, we talk about one of his recent Forbes magazine articles titled, “Our Economic Model is Out of WACC”. https://www.forbes.com/sites/dantedisparte/2018/05/28/our-economic-model-is-out-of-wacc/#7a8c5167395a His article, referencing Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC), explains how large companies think about investment models, and his stance is that it’s time for a new investment yardstick. He explains how blockchain and cryptocurrencies enable new business models that can help reprice and right-size finance and incentives. Dante also references an article written by one of his colleagues at Forbes, Michael del Castillo  Article: The 10 Largest Companies In the World Are Now Exploring Blockchain ht

Robert brings a passion for financial inclusion to his new role as co-founder of the Start Up nodl. With a military engineering background, two decades building platforms for international banks,and technical FinTech expertise, having built the ground-breaking Vulcan blockchain platform when he was at PwC, nodl is where he’s bringing it all together for the greater good. http://nodl.io/ https://www.pwc.com.au/press-room/2016/vulcan-digital-asset-services-nov16.html Today on the podcast Robert shares what big changes he wants to put into practice that he believes could revolutionize the way millions of people live. We also talk about the new book that he wrote with co-author, Sofie Blakstad. Sofie is a long-time fintech collaborator of Robert’s and CEO of hiveonline whose blockchain strategy Robert is responsible for. The book “FinTech Revolution: Universal Inclusion in the New Financial Ecosystem” comes out this week on Kindle and I strongly urge everyone to grab a copy. Robert explains that 1/3 of the world

Blockchain Expert, Jason Lee is the Expansion Director for the NEM foundation for Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific and was named one of Forbes Top 30 Under 30 Asia. Jason compares blockchain tech to electricity. Electricity powers what we use all around us but it’s working behind the scenes. Blockchain protocols are similar. As we go forward with this technology it will become seamless. It will be the technology powering what we use all around us, working behind the scenes, like electricity. We also talk about the Facebook data privacy scandal and Jason introduces the concept that “If you’re not paying for the product, you ARE the product.” Food for thought. But in a decentralized world, we could be paid for the data or personal information that we choose to provide. Decentralization puts the power back into the consumer rather than the service provider. It begs the question, shouldn’t businesses pay consumers for the information they receive if it helps them with marketing, or allows them to sell adv

Sunny Ray really started thinking about money, what it is and where it comes from, back before bitcoin cost a little more than a couple of lattes. Since then, he’s seen bitcoin sky rocket to over 2000 times that price and explains why he thinks it has long term value, as digital gold. What’s fascinating about the rationale behind his explanation is that that it’s based on two theories of economics and how our society values, prints and uses money. Sunny gives us a beginner’s look into the philosophy of bitcoin compared to that of fiat money by explaining that with our current system is based on Keynesian Economics where more money is printed every year. And this is very different from bitcoin, which is based on Austrian Economics, where one of the foundational elements of the value of bitcoin as a currency, is its scarcity or the fact that it has a limited supply. And if anyone wants to go deeper, I’ve got more info in the show notes page on the Speaking of Crypto website. And that’s just one aspect of why bi

I’m shaking things up and turning the microphone around! Instead of doing the interviewing, I brought on a fellow TV veteran, Lisa Pickering, to interview me. I thought it would be good idea to talk about why I’m doing this podcast and what was it that motivated me to start learning about cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology in the first place. And what it comes down to is trying to make the technology, that I find incredibly exciting and revolutionary, easy to understand. Lisa Pickering, my interviewer, and I worked together years ago as Television Producers at MuchMusic in Toronto. We both come from a television background and we’re both fascinated by what’s happening in the blockchain space so we go through some of the basics, from a beginner’s perspective on what’s going on and what’s exciting for the future of this space. NOTE: there is one moment of explicit language in case you are language sensitive. Some of the things we talk about are: The Internet of Money by Andreas M. Antonopoulos https:

Federico Ast is the Founder of Kleros, a revolutionary blockchain protocol that is going to change the way we do business in a hugely impactful way. What Kleros will be able to do, is give us easy access to judge, jury, and verdict, all delivered in about 24 hours. Federico explains how this dispute resolution, or online justice, in the form of blockchain technology works and where we might use it. As an example, he talks about hiring someone in another country to build a website for you. Up front you can set the terms and decide that you’re going to go through Kleros for dispute resolution if one of you isn’t happy with the outcome. Then if one of you isn’t happy, Kleros decides. A group of decentralized jurors looks at the evidence and awards a verdict. Kleros decides who owes what to whom. And, basically, the money goes to the winner. Aside from Founding Kleros, Federico also has a PhD in economics and philosophy, so he gives us a history lesson in Argentinian economics to help us put into perspective, why

Bitcoin is disruptive. And because of that, it scares people. Some people. But from the perspective of someone living in Argentina, who’s been through economic turmoil, Bitcoin’s not the bad guy, it’s a valuable tool.  And that’s how Diego Gutiérrez Zaldívar sees it. He’s is building possibilities on the foundation of Bitcoin with his RSK platform. He’s putting his vision into practice and creating tools that benefit many. And he’s figuring out a way to help with, among many other things, financial inclusion, economic independence and a whole new way of distributing wealth. Diego’s putting his vision into practice and creating the tools that benefit many. He talks about “reputation as collateral”. How does someone who has no credit, enter the financial system? There may be a way. Diego talks about the idea of risk assessment being based on new thinking, honouring the integrity of a customer through their reputation by what is reported from an educational institution or an NGO. It’s all new thinking. One of th

Tracy  Leparulo is a Blockchain Event Marketer based in Toronto who’s been in the crypto space from, just about the beginning. She planned and managed the First Bitcoin Expo … in the World And that Expo included over 50 speakers from the early days including Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum, Charlie Lee, who founded litecoin and even Doge Coin was there. Tracy also hosted the First Ever Ethereum Hackathon Event and many more. Check out her site Untraceable Inc for more info and past and upcoming events, including the Blockchain Futurist Conference in Toronto in August. Tracy Leparulo, Blockchain Events https://www.untraceableinc.com/ Tracy has so much knowledge and is so well connected in the space that she talked about the way things were back in the day, like when Decentral was based out of a house on Spadina Ave in Toronto. https://decentral.ca/ That’s a totally different vibe to what my upcoming podcast guest Sunny Ray describes as the decentral of today. You can hear more on that podcast out a week f

Mawadda Basir is the Executive Director at Collider X a blockchain research and development hub that brings together businesses, academics and experts as they tackle blockchain innovations and best use cases. We talk about the blockchain culture, based on open source, building on existing shared platforms, being transparent, decentralized, borderless and fostering collaboration. Collaboration is key and must have been a huge part of Mawadda’s success at Rubix by Deloitte and the foundational blockchain work she did with her team there. Imagine collaborating on new technology, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible and continually bouncing ideas off of forward thinking, collaborative-minded people in the space. It sounds like that’s what it must have been like at Deloitte, especially when Mawadda mentions that the team included what we might now call “heavy hitters” in the blockchain space in Toronto, including Nuco/Aion founders Mathew Spoke, Kesem Frank, and Jinius Tu. Also, Henry Chan who’s now part of C